Shimon Says: - J' Accuse!

(a Tzeischem Lesholom for HaRav YD Ushpal upon leaving for America, Otwock, 5698)


Shimon Goldman was a 14 year old kid from Shedlitz, Poland who escaped with Tomchei Tmimim Bochurim to Vilna and then through Russia to Japan and Shanghai, China. In his memoirs entitled “From Shedlitz to Safety” recently published in English he recounts those days.

We begin on page 139 in a paragraph entitled "Disgraced by fellow Jews";

(edited for brevity, HT)

"In the US a select group of Torah giants came together and formed the "Vaad Hatzalah". Their primary function was easing the plight of the many displaced Yeshivos struggling for survival in Shanghai and other places. Officially money was alloted acording to the number of students in every Yeshivah. The money was chaneled through Switzerland. Reb Yisroel Zuber, a Chabad Chossid and a graduate of Tomchei Tmimim, lived in Switzerland at that time, and he worked very hard to ensure that all the money would indeed reach Shanghai.

Sadly, certain factions of the VH decided that Chabad Bochurim would not get a single dollar of this charity. Whenever an envelope of money reached Shanghai it was always accompanied by a letter specifying "EXCEPT FOR CHABAD!". Hence, while the students of Mir and other Yeshivos received generous stipends to help them eat and buy clothes, the students of Tomchei
Tmimim had to fend for themselves.

(Yeshivas Tomchei Tmimim, Warsaw, 5690's)

The irony of the situation was not quite lost on the Mirrer Rosh Yeshiva, Reb Chaim Shmuelevitz. These life-saving funds reached their destination due to a Chabad Chossid - Reb Yisroel Zuber - and were now being mailed to Rabbi Ashkenazi (Reb Meir, the Chief Rabbi of Shanghai, HT), another Chabad Chossid. Yet, Chabad Bochurim could not get their rightful share of the money! Reb Chaim felt ill at ease about the entire matter and remarked wryly, “The Torah giants of our time could live in true harmony, were it not for the constant meddling and interference of their attendees.”

The monies were addressed to RMA. He and RCS distributed the money but we received NOTHING.

Some postulated that it was due to a dispute over a second fund that the FR established for victims of Communist and Nazi persecution, a fund of which the accounting was kept secret. Certain Gedaylim believed that the FR was hampering their fund-raising efforts because people believed that he was also sending money to Shanghai, which was not the case. They resented this secrecy and retaliated by excluding Chabad from the VH fund.

The FR, after seeing the suffering of his Talmidim, ordered RaSHaG to start another fund, “and he managed to send us considerable sums of money. Due to his untiring efforts we escaped hunger and death.”

Nice, no?